Over the last two decades, automated retail point of sale systems have been proposed. These automated retail point of sale systems essentially allow the customer to scan himself or herself the bar codes that appear on many products and uniquely identify these products, or provide alternative product code entry mechanisms for products not possessing bar codes. The customer then places the product in an identification area. Eventually the customer or the system automatically moves the product to a bag packing or storage area.
Automated retail systems have typically been disclosed for usage in supermarkets as direct replacements for existing conventional lanes. For example, consider Humble, U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,343--Self-Service Distribution System. The self-service checkout stations of the Humble invention are placed in parallel lines much like conventional supermarket lanes. Note also that each self-service checkout station of the Humble invention occupies approximately the same amount of floorspace as a typical supermarket checkout lane. Since very few supermarkets have significant unused floorspace in the checkout area, the implication is the replacement of one conventional lane with one self-service checkout station in the same area previously occupied by the conventional lane. However, the productivity of a typical supermarket checkout lane involving a cashier and a bagger is approximately 30 products per minute, while the productivity of typical shopper using a self-serve checkout lane is typically only approximately 10 products per minute. Thus the direct replacement of a conventional supermarket lane with a self-serve checkout lane can result in a huge decrease in the checkout productivity of the supermarket. It is this factor which is mainly responsible at present for the reluctance of supermarket companies to install self-service checkout lanes.
All self-serve checkout systems require some human intervention, whether for payment, product identification or problem resolution. The floorspace required for the human supervisor station remains an additional problem.
Although self-serve checkout systems have the potential to save supermarkets significant labor costs, it is unlikely that many supermarkets will convert to uniquely self-serve checkout systems. Many customers will prefer, and may insist upon, the availability of conventional human cashier operated checkout lanes. Thus, the installation of self-serve checkout systems must be done in the context of co-existence with conventional checkout lanes. Thus the fixtures and passageways of the existing checkout area cannot generally be changed to accommodate the installation of self-serve checkout systems.
Produce items generally have no bar code labels affixed, and thus greatly reduce the productivity of self-serve checkout systems due to the necessity of requiring alternative non-scanning mechanisms to checkout such items. Thus, the installation of self-serve checkout systems requires a solution to the problem of significantly reducing the proportion of non-coded produce items.
Self-serve checkout systems must also operate in the context of bag handling modalities. In particular, car orders are frequent choice of customers. The customer typically tells the human cashier or bagger that a car order is desired. A bagger then typically places the packed bags directly in the car order area or on a conveyor system leading to the car order area. After payment of the order is effected, the cashier typically gives the customer a token for bags sent to the car order area. The customer then leaves the supermarket and drives in his/her car to the car order area. Upon receipt of the token, a car order area attendant then typically retrieves the customer's bags and typically places the bags in the customer's car. The self-serve checkout system must accommodate the choice of a car order and must provide arrangements for transfer of the customer's bags to the car order area and subsequent retrieval.